Pintxos 1: small delicacies & chance encounters

Abstract

Jacques Derrida wrote in Glas that “The glue of chance creates sense” and he was almost correct. It is, in fact, the toothpick of reading and writing—taken in their most expansive senses—that connects one chance event to another, that binds together, however briefly, the volatility of events. Chance and art: the pleasures of sensuous sensibilities, the distinctions of the conceptual, and the free-flowing sociability of a city as the day rounds almost imperceptibly toward the night. Watch out for the drunken philosophers, poets, and painters; listen for the talking parrots and puppets; beware of the marauding pirates and the red hand-prints on the walls of caves. Pintxos is best read in a manner similar to nibbling upon its namesake, tasted bit-by-bit as if one is wandering from one bar to the next along the evening streets of San Sebastian. This is the first part of a two-part installment.